MARGIE CRISP (b. 1960)

Originally from New Orleans, Margie Crisp resides in Elgin, just east of Austin, with her husband and fellow artist William Montgomery.

An award-winning author, Crisp divides her time between writing and creating art. Currently her primary mediums are egg tempera paintings on panel (often embellished with 24k gold leaf) and printmaking including linocuts and lithographs. She finds working in the traditional medium of egg tempera a meditative process and enjoys working with the dry pigments, mixing in egg yolk to produce the quick-drying and durable paint.

While birds are one of the primary subjects in her art, she does not consider herself a bird artist. She explains that birds are prevalent, abundant, and familiar. They inhabit the same spaces as people and are bold enough to confront them. She feels that the moment of communion between species compels her to repeatedly draw, paint, and print birds.

Crisp describes her own work as grounded in reality: the particular, the focused, the well-observed, or the specifically-imagined.

Selected Biographical and Career Highlights

1960 Born in New Orleans, Louisiana
1984 Associate of Applied Science in Commercial Art and Advertising Design, with High Honors, Southwestern Technical College, Sylva, North Carolina
1991 BFA, with High Honors, The University of Texas at Austin
2009 Writer in Residence, Thinking Like a Mountain Foundation, Ft. Davis
2011 Artist in Residence, Madroño Ranch, Medina
2012 Published River of Contrasts: The Texas Colorado, Texas A&M University Press
2012 Ron Tyler Award for Best Illustrated Book on Texas History and Culture, presented by Texas State Historical Association
2012 Carr P. Collins Award for Best Book of Non-Fiction, Texas Institute of Letters
Resides in Elgin, Texas

Selected Exhibitions

1989 Intimate Images: Small Works on Paper, St. Edward’s University, Austin
1995 Counterpoint 1995, Edd R. Turner Memorial Award, Hill Country Arts Foundation, Ingram
1995 Art At Large: Billboard Art Competition, one of three winners, Austin Visual Arts Association, Austin
1995 Third Biennial Gulf of Mexico Symposium Juried Art Show, Honorable Mention, Art Center of Corpus Christi
1996 In the Garden: Katherine Brimberry and Margie Crisp, Flatbed Press, Austin
1996 Southwest ’96, Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico
1997 Contemporary Views: Images of Land and Nature—Diane Grammer, Margie Crisp, Stacey Erickson, and Gordon Fowler, Museum of the Big Bend, Alpine
1997 New Lines, Women Printmakers of Austin, St. Edward’s University, Austin
1998 Art School Faculty Exhibition, Austin Museum of Art, Austin
1998 National Works on Paper, University of Texas at Tyler
2002 People, Places and Things, Selections from the Permanent Collection, Austin Museum of Art, Austin
2003 North American Print Biennial, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
2004 Gardens, Real and Imagined, Austin Museum of Art, Driscoll Villa, Austin
2005 The Print Show, Maryland Federation of Art City Gallery, Baltimore
2007 Betty MacDonald, Foust, and Margie Crisp, Migration, A Gallery, Charlottesville, Virginia
2008 Art, Science and the World Around Us, Art Center Waco
2011 Perspective Influences Perception, Artwork from the Airport’s Collection, Phoenix Airport Museum, Phoenix
2011 Fresh & Salty, Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Fort Worth
2012 River of Contrasts: Artwork of the Texas Colorado River by Margie Crisp, Austin Bergstrom International Airport, Austin
2012 River of Contrasts: The Texas Colorado, Solo, Taste Wine & Art, Johnson City
2012 River of Contrasts: The Texas Colorado, Solo, Art Center of Waco
2012 Restless Heart: Early and Contemporary Texas Regionalism, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo
2013 Margie Crisp: Art of the Texas Colorado River, Solo, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Austin
2013 Wings & Wheels, Artwork from the Airport’s Collection, Phoenix Airport Museum, Phoenix, Arizona
2013 Holidays at the Haley, Haley Memorial Library, Midland
2014 Painting in the Texas Tradition: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, Turner House, Dallas
2015 Painting in the Texas Tradition: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, Spring
2015 Ties that Bind: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, Turner House, Dallas

Selected Public Collections

Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi
Austin Museum of Art, Austin
Grace Museum, Abilene
Phoenix Arts Commission, Print Collection, Phoenix, Arizona
University of Texas at San Antonio
Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler

Margie Crisp Prints

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